City News

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded Winston-Salem and Forsyth County 21 grants, totaling $1.64 million, for programs that serve the homeless. The grants include $154,168 for two new initiatives to address chronic homelessness.

The grants will go to 10 agencies for specific housing and support-service programs and not for general support, said Mellin Parker, the director of the city’s Housing/Neighborhood Development Department. The city will administer grants to AIDS Care Service, Bethesda Center, Experiment in Self-Reliance, Family Services, Hosanna House, Salvation Army, Samaritan Ministries, and the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. Also, grants were made directly to CenterPoint Human Services and Next Step Ministries.

Nineteen of the grants are renewals for existing programs, Parker said. A new grant of $101,340 was awarded to the Bethesda Center to provide rental assistance to the chronically homeless, and a new grant of $52,828 was awarded to the Hosanna House of Transition to lease apartments for the chronically homeless. Both grants help meet the goals of the Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness.

HUD made the grants under its Continuum of Care initiative, which supports local agencies that provide permanent and transitional housing to the homeless, and provide such services as job training, health care, mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment and child care. The 21 grants received this year total $198,222 more than the 18 Continuum of Care grants HUD awarded to local agencies last year.

For more information about HUD’s Continuum of Care program, go to www.hud.gov. For more information about the local grants and the Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, call City Link at 727-8000.